"Then the High Lord wheeled his mount to face Revelstone. He drew out his staff, swung it three times about his head, and raised it to the sky. From its end, a blue incandescent flame burst and he cried to the Keep:
'Hail, Revelstone !'
The entire population of the Keep responded with one mighty, heart-shaking shout:
'Hail !'

I found it interesting that whilst much was known of Despite, not a lot was know of the Creator - it's almost as if the Lords had decreed themselves to be the only bastion against Despite.

I had always thought that "scenery" was a nice word - yet in the Land it would appear to be superfluous - Beam me up Scottie !

I've also been trying to figure out how many were on the Quest. One passage mentions 25. I thought a Eoman consisted of at least 65 people.

There's something about Birinair's almost staccato like speech that reminds me of Drool's speech pattern - is it only me?

Don't you just enjoy Lord Tamarantha's rendition of the Creator and the Arch of Time? In my minds eye I picture it to be a lot more dramatic probably than the reading permits. This part in particular caught my eye:

Quote:

Buried deep in the Earth through no will or forming of his were banes of destruction, powersvirile enough to rip his masterwork into dust

I immediately think - "Illearth Stone"_________________
I have a bucket list

Last edited by Vain on Sun Nov 17, 2002 4:21 am; edited 1 time in total

Do not hurt where holding is enough;
do not wound where hurting is enough;
do not maim where wounding is enough;
and kill not where maiming is enough;
the greatest warrior is one who does not need to kill.

Quote:

He could not restrain the mordancy of his tone as he concluded, "We have beauty, too. We call it 'scenery.'"

"'Scenery,'" Mhoram echoed. "The word is strange to me - but I do not like the sound."

Covenant felt oddly shaken, as if he had just looked over his shoulder and found himself standing too close to a precipice. "It means that beauty is something extra," he rasped. "It's nice, but we can live without it."

"Without?" Mhoram's gaze glittered dangerously.

And behind him Foamfollower breathed in astonishment, "Live without beauty? Ah, my friend! How do you resist despair?"

"I don't think we do," Covenant muttered. "Some of us are just stubborn."

-------------------

It's funny, Vain - I picked that quote out even before I came here. I guess great minds think alike...

beauty .. scenary .. no wonder this piece of vocabulary was alien to Mhoram .. the people of the Land are not distinct from their environment .. they are a fundamental part of it ..

This is an indictment against us .. generally speaking .. but to the people of the Land .. their environment is integral to their survival and they are reverently aware of it

.. whereas our environment is of equal value to our survival .. but we .. again generally speaking .. just dont get it! .. we dont revere our earth and its very real existent 'earth power' .. I think SRD has a profound message for us in his chronicles ..

We alienate ourselves from our environment .. our Land .. and do not revere its health as the inhabitants of SRD's earth do .. nor do we acknowledge it is health, power and energy .. it means life to us too but regrettably we dont respect our connection to our planet the way the people of the Land do .. we can learn so much from these fictional peoples ..

I love the relationship the inhabitants of the Land have with their earth .. the way their lore protects and preserves their earth .. and would that our lore/law would do the same ..

place environmental imperatives before economic ones .. protect and preserve our finite resources .. safe-guard endangered and threatened species .. be more like the example given in the Land..

I love the Land .. and I love the lore that preserves it .. the Oath of Peace which Foamy defined .. is another of the amazing and higher ideals we see given birth to by SRD in his creation .. there is so much to this work of fantasy that can have real value in our world ..

Do not hurt where holding is enough;
do not wound where hurting is enough;
do not maim where wounding is enough;
and kill not where maiming is enough;
the greatest warrior is one who does not need to kill.

Almost Biblical isnt it? Beatitudes right? I like that Sky, they are PART of thier enviorment. Its so true..._________________"All my life I have sneered at the natural rights of man." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

One thing I've always found really interesting is Lord Mhoram and his attitude towards the Creator as shown in this part of the Chronicles. From chapter 16:

Quote:

"Ah," Mhoram sighed, "we do not know that a Creator lives. Our only lore of such a being comes from the most shadowy reaches of our oldest legends. We know the Despiser. But the Creator we do not know."

I do not want to get too spoilery here, but this is coming from a man whose faith in the next two books clearly gives him strength and sustains him through any number of difficulties. What happens to Mhoram to give him such faith later in his life when he is an agnostic here?_________________Love as thou wilt.

I think his faith in the next two books is not in the Creator, but in the Land and power of the Lords. Even in the quote you just provided, there is probably still a level of faith, or belief._________________"All my life I have sneered at the natural rights of man." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I know that he would probably never do it, but wouldn't it be cool if Donaldson would rewrite the chronicles from a point of view from someone from the Land? Kind of how Card rewrote Ender's War from Bean's viewpoint and called it Ender's Shadow? We get those few precious chapters from Mhoram's point of view later on, and the very wonderful Gildenfire from Korik's. But that's it. So many mysteries would be solved...I realize that it would interfere with the entire dream or reality motif he has going, but still...and yes, Vain, Donaldson's writing is so vivid that it would make a wonderful movie. So many wonderful descriptions. Here's one of the wolf cry:

Quote:

The next moment, there came a distant wail like a cry of protest. It throbbed like desolation in the chill air.

The hair on the back of my neck rises up just thinking about hearing a sound like that while out camping in the middle of nowhere. _________________Love as thou wilt.

The oath of peace... pacifism... nonviolence... two things come to mind, Mahatma Ghandi, and Christ, a mix of the two cultures that influenced SRD.

Poor Covenant, he suffers so much in these chapters, his torture both physical and mental, he is repeatedly stung, traumatized, victimized, until he fears that "if the attacks continued he would inevitably learn to enjoy the sense of horror and loathing which they gave him"

An interesting quote:

Quote:

GANDHI AND THE BUDDHA: THE AESTHETICS OF VIRTUE
Most Euro-American philosophy has unfortunately severed the time-honored connections between truth, goodness, and beauty. Agreeing with his Greek contemporaries, the Buddha established an essential link between goodness and truth on the one hand and evil and untruth on the other.49 Of all the contemporary forms of Mahyna Buddhism is the Soka Gakkai that is most aware of the aesthetic dimension of being moral. Even though its founder Tsunesaburo Makiguchi substituted benefit for truth in his trinity of benefit, goodness, and beauty, he still agreed with the Greeks that beautiful deeds are performed by beautiful souls.

just a bunch of associations...
-pitch_________________We are who we are - and what we are not, we will never become

I like that we finally get a chance to see what the OAP is. It's mentioned repeatedly but this is our first chance to really see what it says.

I really like the passage about the Creator and the exchanges between Mhoram and his parents. The are the token sweet old couple.

It stands out in my mind that the people of the Land don't really believe in the Creator because they don't really see his power or presence in the Land. Earthpower on the other hand is part of their daily lives and they seem to revere that as if it were a god. So maybe the Land is their God and that's what the serve.

That's a very interesting and good point, Lady. That they "worship" the earthpower and the land, rather than the Creator. It is, after all, what they know. And way back in Mithil Stonedown we learned that the people of the Land have a moment of silence before the meal to thank the earth for its bounty, where many religious people in our world would skip thanking the earth and go right on up to thanking the creator (depending upon their religion, of course).
I also like the interactions between Lord Mhoram and his parents. There is clearly a lot of love there! Maybe that's why he's such a darned nice guy! _________________Love as thou wilt.

I think that the Creator is more of a myth then a god, its the smarter ones like Mhoram who truly believe in the Creator. Regardless if they believed in the Creator or not, he was a distant power who was just...watching.

I dont think that the Landers 'worship' the Land, its more respect that worship._________________"All my life I have sneered at the natural rights of man." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Remember that there is always hope while Revelstone still stands. But if Revelstone falls, then all the ages and works of the Lords, from Berek Heartthew to our generation shall come to an end, and the Land will never know the like again.

How is that for some creepy foreshadowing?

Spoiler:

This is of course, exactly what happens in the second chronicles, when Revelstone and the Council fall from within to the Raver.

Do not hurt where holding is enough;
do not wound where hurting is enough;
do not maim where wounding is enough;
and kill not where maiming is enough;
the greatest warrior is one who does not need to kill.

sounds remarkably similar to an often used Sun Tzu quote (from "the Art of War").

Thanks for pointing out the source of the Oath of Peace (I asked for it on another thread).

As with other portions of the Chronicles, some of what Donaldson uses is seems similar to , or even borrowed, from other literature. There are several possibilities as regards The Lord of the Rings, for example.

There are several ways to look at this. One is that some truths cut across religions and cultures; most of our world religions advocate peace and justice. Another is that we need to remember that Covenant might be dreaming all of this; if he is, then we would expect portions of his memory, including memory of Chinese culture, to "seep" into his dream of the Land. Finally, who knows if Donaldson either consciously or subconsciously "borrowed" this phrase as a wonderful expression of the oath of peace for the Land.

Spoiler:

For me , one of the most moving, and disturbing, parts of the Chronicles is when Mhoram is suspecting that the Oath of Peace is the reason the Lords cannot further discern Kevin's wards; he is considering the possibility of dismissing their basic faith in peace in order to further their quest of knowledge. Isn't that what we do when we consider war as a means of making peace?

Great little creation story in chapter 16, I feel. Though at first I thought Tamarantha and her husband Variol were rather senile, it seems obvious by the time I read the following passage that both of them are supposed to be very smart characters.

In Lord Foul's Bane chapter 16 was wrote:

Covenant hung his head to avoid Mhoram's gaze, made sure his left hand was securely in his pocket. After a moment, he said distantly, "Tell me about the Creator."

"Ah," Mhoram sighed, "we do not know that a Creator lives. Our only lore of such a being comes from the most shadowy reaches of our oldest legends. We know the Despiser. But the Creator we do not know."

Then Covenant was vaguely startled to hear Lord Tamarantha cut in, "Of course we know. Ah, the folly of the young. Mhoram my son, you are not yet a prophet. You must learn that kind of courage." Slowly, she pulled her ancient limbs together and got to her feet, leaning on her staff for support. Her thin white hair hung in wisps about her face as she moved into the circle around the fire, muttering frailly, "Oracles and prophecy are incompatible. According to Kevin's Lore, only Heartthew the Lord-Fatherer was both seer and prophet. Lesser souls lose the paradox. Why, I do not know. But when Kevin Landwaster decided in his heart to invoke the Ritual of Desecration, he saved the Bloodguard and the Ranyhyn and the Giants because he was an oracle. And because he was no prophet he failed to see that Lord Foul would survive. A lesser man than Berek. Of course the Creator lives."

She looked over at Variol for confirmation, and he nodded, but Covenant could not tell whether he was approving or drowsing. But Tamarantha nodded in return as if Variol had supported her. Lifting her head to the night sky and the stars, she spoke in a voice fragile with age.

"Of course the Creator lives," she repeated. "How else? Opposites require each other. Otherwise the difference is lost, and only chaos remains. No, there can be no Despite without Creation. Better to ask how the Creator could have forgotten that when he made the Earth. For if he did not forget, then Creation and Despite existed together in his one being, and he did not know it.

"This the elder legends tell us: into the infinity before Time was made came the Creator like a worker into his workshop. And since it is the nature of creating to desire perfection, the Creator devoted all himself to the task. First he built the arch of Time, so that his creation would have a place in which to be--and for the keystone of that arch he forged the wild magic, so that Time would be able to resist chaos and endure. Then within the arch he formed the Earth. For ages he labored, formed and unformed, trialed and tested and rejected and trialed and tested again, so that when he was done his creation would have no cause to reproach him. And when the Earth was fair to his eye, he gave birth to the inhabitants of the Earth, beings to act out in their lives his reach for perfection--and he did not neglect to give them the means to strive for perfection themselves. When he was done, he was proud as only those who create can be.

"Alas, he did not understand Despite or had forgotten it. He undertook his task thinking that perfect labor was all that he required to create perfection. But when he was done, and his pride had tasted its first satisfaction, he looked closely at the Earth, thinking to gratify himself with the sight--and he was dismayed. For, behold! buried deep in the Earth were banes of destruction, powers virile enough to rip his masterwork into dust.

"Then he understood or remembered. Perhaps he found Despite itself beside him, misguiding his hand. Or perhaps he saw the harm in himself. It does not matter. He became outraged with grief and torn pride. In his fury he wrestled with Despite, either within him or without, and in his fury he cast the Despiser down, out of the infinity of the cosmos onto the Earth.

"Alas! thus the Despiser was emprisoned within Time. And thus the Creator's creation became the Despiser's world, to torment as he chose. For the very Law of Time, the principle of power which made the arch possible, worked to preserve Lord Foul, as we now call him. That Law requires that no act may be undone. Desecration may not be undone--defilement may not be recanted. It may be survived or healed, but not denied. Therefore Lord Foul has afflicted the Earth, and the Creator cannot stop him--for it was the Creator's act which placed Despite here.

"In sorrow and humility, the Creator saw what he had done. So that the plight of the Earth would not be utterly without hope, he sought to help his creation in indirect ways. He guided the Lord-Fatherer to the fashioning of the Staff of Law--a weapon against Despite. But the very Law of the Earth's creation permits nothing more. If the Creator were to silence Lord Foul, that act would destroy Time--and then the Despiser would be free in infinity again, free to make whatever befoulments he desired."

Tamarantha paused. She had told her tale simply, without towering rhetoric or agitation or any sign of passion beyond her agedness. But for a moment, her thin old voice convinced Covenant tat the universe was at stake--that his own struggle was only a microcosm of a far larger conflict. During that moment, he waited in suspense for what she would say next.

Shortly, she lowered her head and turned her wrinkled gaze full on him. Almost whispering, she said, "Thus we are come to the greatest test. The wild magic is here. With a word our world could be riven to the core. Do not mistake," she quavered. "If we cannot win this Unbeliever to our cause, then the Earth will end in rubble." But Covenant could not tell whether her voice shook because she was old, or because she was afraid.